Are Europe’s politicians ready to contemplate Grexit?
Gideon Rachman is joined by Ferdinando Giugliano and Stefan Wagstyl to discuss the growing stand-off between Greece and its eurozone creditors as the language becomes more uncompromising on both sides. What would happen if Greece left the eurozone and are politicians prepared to contemplate such an outcome?

Greece’s privatisation programme, ordered under the terms of its international bailout, was falling far short of targets even before the country’s new left-wing government vowed to scrap further sales of state assets

The west’s inability to comprehend how Vladimir Putin sees the world means it has trouble thinking constructively about how to deal with him (The American Interest)

A convicted al-Qaeda operative has claimed that more than a dozen prominent Saudi figures were donors to the terror group and that a Saudi diplomat discussed with him a plot to shoot down Air Force One (NYT)

Greece’s new finance minister proposed a “menu of debt swaps”, which involve exchanging existing loans for growth-linked bonds, that fall short of a headline write-off of the country’s €315bn foreign debt

A former colleague on the FT (no names, but he now runs the UK’s Office for Budget Responsibility) used to muse that a useful all-purpose headline for any story about an emerging market economy was “[Insert Name Of Country Here]: Structural Reform?”

Putting “Greece” into that formula after Syriza’s resounding victory in Sunday’s election, where do we stand? Every pundit in Europe is retailing some version of the insightful observation that it is all about whether Syriza — and its leader, Alexis Tsipras, Greece’s new prime minister (above) — can be induced to do enough structural reform to buy the fiscal leeway and debt relief it wants.

The problem with this view is that “structural reform” is a crude and unhelpful term. Read more

Most euro area governments and investors are breathing a sigh of relief after Wednesday’s preliminary judgment from the EU’s highest court in favour of the European Central Bank’s sovereign bond-buying programme – the 2012 initiative that helped to bring the euro crisis under control.

But governments and investors, in and outside Europe, should keep in mind that the danger of a bitter, protracted struggle over EU constitutional law will now go up. This would pit Germany against other power centres in the EU.Read more

The growth of the banking sector, particularly in the US and UK, has helped turn back the egalitarian trend witnessed in the half-century to 1970 through a sharp rise in income inequality, writes John Kay

An unusual deal by banks to lend $11bn on favourable terms to Russia’s largest oil company, Rosneft, seems to suggest Moscow’s priority is not fighting inflation or stabilising the rouble – and has increased risks in the banking system

The nationalist BJP government in India has promised to rebuild the temple of Ram, a fiery point of contention for Hindus and Muslims. But it’s not doing so for a surprising reason. (Foreign Policy)

The Obama administration overturned a ban preventing a wealthy, politically connected Ecuadorean woman from entering the United States after her family gave tens of thousands of dollars to Democratic campaigns (NYT)

The prospect of Greece’s self-styled “radical left” Syriza party coming to power has sown panic among investors, but its leader has softened his rhetoric and is changing tactics to reassure the business community

Beneath the surface of gridlock and hyper-partisanship in US political life is a national security establishment whose influence endures administrations and constantly seems to evade constraints

Narendra Modi has not made many sweeping reforms since he stormed to India’s premiership in May. But he has made some reforms about sweeping – showing his feel for the issues that affect the masses outside the Delhi beltway

The ascendancy of the political strongman across the globe – from Russia’s Putin to China’s Xi, and Turkey’s Erdogan to Japan’s Abe – shows a permanent shift in the nature of international relations between states

People wait in line at a government employment office in Madrid – Getty

A strong, broadly based economic recovery in the eurozone is nowhere in sight – as will become clear on Friday, when Eurostat, the EU agency, and several national statistical offices publish estimates for gross domestic product growth in the third quarter of this year. Read more

The World

with Gideon Rachman

Gideon became chief foreign affairs columnist for the Financial Times in July 2006. He joined the FT after a 15-year career at The Economist, which included spells as a foreign correspondent in Brussels, Washington and Bangkok. He also edited The Economist’s business and Asia sections.

His particular interests include American foreign policy, the European Union and globalisation